The Arrephorion or House of the Arrephoroi is a building conjectured to have been on the Acropolis of Athens based on a passage in Pausanias.1.27.3 The discovery of the foundations of a substantial buildingOften designated Building III, see Hurwit, p.199 on the north-west edge of the Acropolis has led to the identification of this structure with the Arrephorion.Discovered in 1886, first associated with the Arrephorion by W. Dörpfeld, Das Hekatompedon in Athen, JdI, 34, 1919, pp.1-40.
Pausanias reports that:
I was much amazed at something which is not generally known, and so I will describe the circumstances. Two maidens dwell not far from the temple of Athena Polias, called by the Athenians Bearers of the Sacred Offerings. For a time they live with the goddess, but when the festival comes round they perform at night the following rites. Having placed on their heads what the priestess of Athena gives them to carry—neither she who gives nor they who carry have any knowledge what it is—the maidens descend by the natural underground passage that goes across the adjacent precincts, within the city, of Aphrodite in the Gardens. They leave down below what they carry and receive something else which they bring back covered up. These maidens they henceforth let go free, and take up to the Acropolis others in their place.Pausanias. Pausanias Description of Greece with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes. Harvard, 1918.
Additionally, Plutarch remarks on the existence of a ballcourt adjacent to the house.Plutarch, Vitae decem oratorum. Isokrates 839C. [Plutarch] Moralia 839b for residency on the Acropolis. The physical remains fit what we know of the House of the Arrephoroi but the evidence is still circumstantial that this was in fact the residence of the Arrephoroi.Other sites have been proposed for the Arrephorion; the Sanctuary of Aphrodite in the Gardens or the Erechtheion, Bundgaard, 1976, pp.34-35 and Jeppesen, 1987, pp.13-14 respectively.
The dimensions of the building are square, and it was erected on a foundation of limestone blocks. It was divided into a south-facing portico of deep and a single rectangular room of approximately . Jens Andreas Bundgaard: The Excavation of the Athenian Acropolis 1882-1990. Copenhagen 1974, p.11 ff. The terrace immediately around the building is an artificial one created by infill, which along with the foundation is dated to the last half of the 5th century or contemporary with the Erechtheion.After 470 Hurwit, Acropolis in the Age of Pericles, Cambridge, 2004, p.210. "probably built in the second half of the fifth century, though nothing definitely associates it with the Periclean building program)" p.212
The reconstruction of the architecture is controversial.See discussion in Helge Olaf Svenshon, Studien zum hexastylen Prostylos archaischer und klassischer Zeit. PhD Darmstadt, 2002, pp74–106. While Dörpfeld assumed a south-facing front with two columns in antis - a conjecture that has recently been taken up againRichard Economakis: Acropolis Restoration. London 1994, p.43. - four columns between the antae were later reconstructed.Kristian Jeppesen, The Theory of the Alternative Erechtheion. Premises, Definition, and Implications. Aarhus 1987, pp.490–491. However, since no other four-column antae structures are known, Heiner Knell, Der jüngere Tempel des Apollon Patroos auf der Athner Agora. In: Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts. Bd. 109, 1994, p.220. a reconstruction with a six-column prostyle porch was recently proposed.Helge Olaf Svenshon, Studien zum hexastylen Prostylos archaischer und klassischer Zeit. Darmstadt 2002, p.95 ff. Because of the wide foundations, it can be assumed that there was a step substructure, a crepidoma, on which the actual building stood. Only a gable with a corresponding roof can have risen above the six-columned, prostyle portico. Older reconstructions with a hipped, pyramidal roof would therefore have to be discarded. The order of the columns in the building is unclear. An Ionic order is to be considered, although most available reconstructions assume a Doric order.Helge Olaf Svenshon, Studien zum hexastylen Prostylos archaischer und klassischer Zeit. Darmstadt 2002, p.106 n.141.
Notes
Bibliography